Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer
FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE. By Walter Mosley. Mulholland Books. 336 pages. $30.
The title gives it away.
In all previous 15 books about Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, dozens of beautiful women pass through the pages. None of them get more than a few chapters, however, and few of them make it to the end of the book with Easy. It’s no surprise, then, that somewhere near the end of the book, Easy says Farewell, Amethystine. He has let us know what’s going to happen. He uses his mastery of the mystery genre to keep the reader interested in how it’s going to happen.
It all starts when Amethystine steps across the threshold of Easy’s office into his heart. She wants him to find her ex-husband Curtis. He wants to stay in touch with her. He takes the case even though he thinks she isn’t telling him everything. Easy sets off to find the guy. In the process, he is so moved by Amethystine that he is rocked by flashbacks to lost loves, past desires. Through memories and dreams, Walter Mosley reveals new information about Easy’s past.
When Easy finds the husband, he’s dead. He tries to get his only friend on the police force, Melvin Suggs, to help him, but Suggs is being blackmailed by someone who has information that would put his wife away for good. Easy takes on his buddy’s case as well. Before long he finds himself where no black man in 1970’s Los Angeles should be — mixed up with “…cops, career criminals and strangers.” He extracts Fearless Jones, another Mosley character, from jail to help him deal with thugs. He also has to use his get-out-of-jail-alive card from Police Capt. Anatole McCourt. Mosley adeptly weaves the two plots together, keeping us in the dark, but keeping us reading comfortably. It’s all about the money, and after five bodies in seven days, Easy knows whodunnit, and he knows he has to say Farewell, Amethystine.
As always, Mosley puts everything into a social context. His books are as much about the place of a black man in society as they are about the mystery. As he moves through his carefully constructed world — thriving detective agency, a salary twice that of the average Angeleno, a beautiful house for his family — Easy still carries himself as a man who’s “…lived half a century under the weight of second-and third-class citizenship.” He still moves with the “…fear comprised of four hundred years of experience crushed down into fifty short years of life.”
Social commentary, fascinating characters, good plot and great writing make this 16th Easy Rawlins adventure a great read. Without question, Mosley is not just the best African-American mystery novelist; he’s one of the best American novelists, period.